Firefox for Web DevelopersFeb 26

WebAssembly is a second-class language on the web, but how can we make it first-class? WebAssembly Components could be the answer…

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2026/02/making-webassembly-a-first-class-language-on-the-web/

Why is WebAssembly a second-class language on the web? – Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog

This post is an expanded version of a presentation I gave at the recent WebAssembly CG meeting in Munich. WebAssembly has come a long way since its first release in 2017. The 1.0 version of WebAssembly was already a great fit for low-level languages like C and C++, and immediately enabled many new kinds of applications to efficiently target the web.

Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog
Show threadAlon ZakaiFeb 27

@firefoxwebdevs

I am personally skeptical about this.

Reasons 1-3 are current toolchain limitations - I'm not sure a new web standard is the right solution.

Reason 4 is speed - I could be convinced there, but it would take more than that benchmark.

Show threadRyan HuntFeb 27

@kripken @firefoxwebdevs

Fair enough! Could you unpack what you mean about Reasons 1-3?

Show threadAlon ZakaiFeb 27

@ryan @firefoxwebdevs

About 1-3, I agree that it could be easier for toolchains to emit runnable wasm if browsers did more.

But it would also be easier for them if we implemented wasm-ld and wasm-opt in the browser.

In all these cases I think the problems are fixable on the toolchain side, and that there would be significant costs on the browser side.

(Concretely for 1-3, one idea is to generalize/standardize wasm-bindgen for non-Rust toolchains, etc.)

Show threadRyan Hunt

@kripken @firefoxwebdevs

Thanks!

Fair point about the costs on the browser side. I agree any solution here will need to pay it's weight before it's standardized and shipped.

Feb 27 at 5:13pmWeb
Show threadAlon ZakaiFeb 27

@ryan @firefoxwebdevs

Agreed!

And I am very curious about the potential speedups here.

Though I'm also worried about sites shipping many tiny components in "raw" form, when it would have been better for a toolchain to "flatten/merge" them and do inlining etc. A lot to consider here I think.

Show threadRyan HuntFeb 27

@kripken @firefoxwebdevs

Yeah, there's a lot of open questions still. I think of this as a very promising area to research and experiment with. But not a settled question.